I used to think nature was innocent. Now I think nature wants to live at all costs.

I know I only have a few seconds to relish the deep wave of love that comes over me when I see his face. It will soon be replaced by the need to fortify myself. His anger will surface soon and I will be blamed in some way for his suffering. I’ve had to crawl my way out of the pit that was my obsession with his well-being. It took fifteen years. It felt like a betrayal to him, but it had to happen.

I watch as men in uniform hand his wife an American flag. “That should be my mother’s,” I whisper to myself.

There is irony in undergoing a passive medical procedure to be active again. And it’s painful knowing the thing I love to do is hurting me in return. In this case, freedom illuminates the fragile cage of my body.

I counted all the ways I was not enough. Looked for all the reasons I wasn’t worthy of walking among the healing, could these others see it on me? Could they smell it? Did the way I walked betray it? Emblazoned on my spine like a title: The Rape Kit. The Rape Survivor. The Rape Victim. The Rape. The Rape. The Rape that was as essential to me then as my own heartbeat. Maybe more.

I tried to tailor the tattered tapestry of your arcane inner thoughts, lace-up a labyrinth of lament with love, and silently suture a sanguine sackcloth of self-immolation